Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Jan 3, 2008

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly summary, read the summary, then quickly scan headlines, read the bullet, then click to learn even more.

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Web Strategy Summary
The biggest concerns this week are privacy concerns, both of Facebook’s Beacon, as well as data portability and scraping. Community requests ownership of data, although the infrastructure to support this is not yet available. The trend over data ownership and personal privacy on social networks continues to hot topic.

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Metrics: MySpace Latests Stats Available
The following stats were sent to me from a reporter: “Launched in L.A. by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, acquired by Fox Interactive Media in October 2005, has 110 million monthly active users around the globe, 85% are 18 or older, 1 in 4 Americans is on MySpace, On average 300,000 new people sign up daily, localized and translated in more than 20 international territories, 100 Billion rows of data, 14 Billion comments on the site, 20 Billion mails on the site total, 50 Million mails per day (more than Yahoo, Hotmail, or Google), 10 Billion friend relationships, 1.5 Billion images, 8 Million images being uploaded per day, 60,000 new videos being upload to MySpaceTV each day, More than 8 million artists and bands on MySpace Music.”

Privacy and Data: Concerns over Fan based ads and scraping
Megan McCarthy, new journalist at Wired documents the ongoing concern of users that are endorsing brands, without their full knowledge of what that means. I provided my recommendations to companies deploying social ads within the article. On a related thread, Robert Scoble has scraped many of this contacts using an automated script causing Facebook to remove his account and banning him, issues over data portability and ownership are questioned.

Analysis: Visualization of a social graph
Great analysis of actual social networks, and what they look like. These diagrams show how observers and those that are highly connected differ based upon their location on the concentric circles. Link via Patrick Lambe.

Crime: The many dangers of Social Networks
Criminals are now targeting social networks as an information rich repository to steal data, impersonate, or be mischievous. Users should be aware of who they connect to, as org charts, birthdays, and relationships are much for the public eye.

Privacy: A Roundtable discussion on User Privacy
David Berkowitz, who has recently been unknowingly endorsing Blockbuster is captivated with his privacy and the privacy of others, and has assembeld a roundtable (myself included). Great perspectives from different users.

Crossover: Fuser bridges MySpace inbox to Facebook
Red Herring asked me for my predictions on the future of social networks MySpace and Facebook regarding cross-over of applications and social graph. While Fuser is a signal that there will be more ‘bridges’ to come, it’s not the beginning of the end, as demographics differ on each network. Fuser let’s members check MySpace inbox on Facebook, aggregated on one spot.

Widgets: Analysis Why Applications Fail
Rodney Rumford, Widget expert, does analysis on why Sony’s snowglobe application failed, and what could have been done to prevent this. A must read if you’re going into this space.

Summary: Broadband Mechanics reviews it’s past year
Marc Canter makes some year-end announcements from his blog, summarizing some recent funding totals, provides some customers stories, and even some case studies of current successes. If you’re in the industry, I want to know about these successes, please keep me informed.

Trends: Social Networking goes small
Kim Hart of the Washington Post writes a well researched article with many examples on how social networking is getting more refined and focused in addition to the growth. The article also points out that advertising will increase 75% in the next year

Facebook: A year in review
The San Jose Mercury tells why Facebook has become so key as a social network in 2007, but of course, outlining the pitfalls and challenges. I add my insight in the article, so look for my quotes.

Usage: Americans Create, Teens ready for Mobile
Research indicates 32% of Americans consider themselves broadcasters, and they use mobile devices, social networks and web tools. eMarketers reports in that teens use mobile devices, and social networks, some of these stats are from 2006, although likely accurate.

What else should be on this list? Leave a comment, feedback, or suggestions, I’m listening. The next digest will be in the near year, kind of exciting!